Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Climate Blasphemy! Jordan Peterson, whose podcasts have had over 285 million views, and famous Actor / Comedian Joe Rogan who hosts the wildly popular Joe Rogan Experience, have triggered the entire alarmist community by explaining why they think climate predictions are unreliable.
Their broadcast got so much attention, singer Neil Young is boycotting world leading podcast host Spotify for carrying such material.
Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan Talking About Climate Change Will Make Your Brain Dissolve
The big boys had a big thinky about climate change.
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Rogan and Peterson waxed on about climate for a good 30 minutes at the beginning of the four-hour-plus (!) episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, which was released Tuesday. I listened to the whole thing and it made me want to self-immolate. I’ll spare you all the bulk of the exchange because I would like you to continue to exist in a less flammable state, but I feel obligated to share the stupidest parts here, so you can share in my pain.
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PETERSON: Well, that’s ‘cause there’s no such thing as climate. Right? “Climate” and “everything” are the same word, and that’s what bothers me about the climate change types. It’s like, this is something that bothers me about it, technically. It’s like, climate is about everything. Okay. But your models aren’t based on everything. Your models are based on a set number of variables. So that means you’ve reduced the variables, which are everything, to that set. Well how did you decide which set of variables to include in the equation, if it’s about everything? That’s not just a criticism, that’s like, if it’s about everything, your models aren’t right. Because your models do not and cannot model everything.
ROGAN: What do you mean by everything?
PETERSON: That’s what people who talk about the climate apocalypse claim, in some sense. We have to change everything! It’s like, everything, eh? The same with the word environment. That word means so much that it doesn’t mean anything. … What’s the difference between the environment and everything? There’s no difference.
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Read more: https://gizmodo.com/jordan-peterson-joe-rogan-climate-denial-1848425540
It gets funnier;
‘Word salad of nonsense’: scientists denounce Jordan Peterson’s comments on climate models
Speaking on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Peterson claimed the climate was too complex to be modelled accurately, which was quickly shot down by scientists
Graham Readfearn
Thu 27 Jan 2022 18.05 AEDTLeading climate scientists have ridiculed and criticised comments made by controversial Canadian psychologist and author Jordan Peterson during an interview on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
During a new four-hour interview on Spotify’s most popular podcast, Peterson – who is not an expert on climate change – claimed that models used to forecast the future state of the climate couldn’t be relied on.
Peterson told Rogan that because the climate was so complex, it couldn’t be accurately modelled.
He said: “Another problem that bedevils climate modelling, too, which is that as you stretch out the models across time, the errors increase radically. And so maybe you can predict out a week or three weeks or a month or a year, but the farther out you predict, the more your model is in error.
“And that’s a huge problem when you’re trying to model over 100 years because the errors compound just like interest.”
Peterson said that if the climate was “about everything” then “your models aren’t right” because they couldn’t include everything.
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Prof Michael Mann, an atmospheric scientist at Penn State University, said Peterson’s comments – and Rogan’s facilitation of them – was an “almost comedic type of nihilism” that would be funny if it wasn’t so dangerous.
Peterson’s claim that the climate was too complicated showed “a total lack of understanding of how science works” and could be used to dismiss physics, chemistry, biology, “and every other field of science where one formulates conceptual models”, according to Mann.
“Every great discovery in science – including the physics that allowed Peterson and Rogan to record and broadcast their ridiculous conversation – has arisen through that process,” he said.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/27/word-salad-of-nonsense-scientists-denounce-jordan-petersons-comments-on-climate-models
Gavin Schmidt freaking out;
What is upsetting the climate community is between them Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson command a gigantic listening audience.
I haven’t listened to the full podcast, but it dives into climate prediction, EV problems and renewable energy vs nuclear right from the start, so it has me hooked.
“why are the left wing types in particular so willing to sacrifice the poor”?
The climate community overreaction may end up being more damaging to the cause of climate alarmism than the original podcast.
All those publicity hungry Youtube and TikTok personalities out there right now who are watching and taking notes have just learned, if you want a gigantic deluge of free publicity from a wide range of outraged liberal media outlets, all you need to do is shoot a few sacred climate cows.
Update (EW): Cancel campaign on – Newly appointed Biden Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in my opinion has come close to asking Silicon Valley to censor Joe Rogan – he stated that silicon valley has “an important role to play” suppressing the spread of Covid misinformation, in an interview which mentions Joe Rogan.
Update (EW): Too funny (h/t Justin Barclay)
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I don;t know what a climate model is, all I know is they’re constantly wrong and having to be reworked. Normally, I wouldn’t care what climate scientists do, but when they make up flawed climate models and legislators start making laws based on them, it creates a problem for everyone. It’s really important for them very careful and accurate.
It is worth repeating what I have already commented on this website: There is no such thing as climate, one absolute climate for our globe with variations over the course of years and a range of weather conditions. There are, however, at least 30 climate zones and sub-zones. Each is subject to variations, a considerable range of weather conditions and a complex interaction with what happens in other zones. In reality we have a mind boggling complexity here.
The English artist, Sir Joshua Reynolds, had an extraordinary insight into the importance of observation. The great English scientist, Michael Faraday, understood the need to test every scientific claim, every assertion, through performing experienments to test the veracity of these. The astute 20th century Hungarian Mathematician, George Polya, wrote “In theoretical matters, the best of ideas is hurt by uncritical acceptance and thrives on critical examination.” These three and many other giants of the past would have laughed at the arrogance and foolishness of today’s alarmists who claim to be “climate scientists.”
erratum (the edit icon vanished before I could change this)
experiments
Hockey Stick Mann? That Mann? And he’s who you throw up as a counter argument? That kinda devalues the credibility of any other rebuttals you are making against the podcast.
The W.H.O. has joined in the fight to silence Rogan.
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2022/01/28/w-h-o-chief-backs-neil-young-against-joe-rogan-demands-end-to-infodemic/
Is the IPCC next?
I never did trust that Roger Daltrey.
“Won’t Get fooled Again”!
Roger Daltrey is a cool cat. And a fisherman.
And who could ever forget Neil Young’s 2014 song “Who’s Gonna Stand Up (and save the Earth)?
End fossil fuel, draw the line
Before we build one more pipeline
End fracking now, let’s save the water
And build a life for our sons and daughters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkiRR3T_3NY
D’you think Joe Biden was listening to this song while he was destroying America?
I bet Neil Young wrote that song while flying in his personal jet.
Watched the whole episode. A couple things stood out:
Didn’t happen. This wasn’t a scientific critique, but an informal, long-format conversation between two adults. Rogan is generally open to the Global Warming and Anthrocentric Climate Change narrative. Peterson pointed out several logical and practical flaws to most of the Global Warming arguments.
and
Didn’t happen. Peterson didn’t say this, but did casually point out several reasons why climate models can’t or shouldn’t guide policy, and cannot predict outcomes based on policy decisions and human action. These are quite different things. It is interesting that both Mann’s comments and Schmidt’s tweet seemed based on the misinformed interpretation of Peterson’s remarks by the reporter.
This is obviously wrong in its judgement of Peterson who has worked credibly in his own scientific field for at least as long as Mann in his. One difference might be that Peterson has shown his work, performed repeatable and ethical experimentation to document and defend his work, and will debate the issues concerning his work in appropriate forum — all things that Mann cannot do. In that sense, the danger Mann describes is quite real – to Mann — in that he cannot and has not engaged in scientific debate or defense of his work, ignores valid criticism, uses political, financial, legal, and social pressure to silence critics regardless of their credentials. Even in this case, from the other quoted remarks, Mann hasn’t listened to the podcast but engaged with the reporter and with the anti-Spotify/Rogan cancel movement that is currently going on, when it wan’t necessary for him to address the podcast at all.
Peterson talks about his own policy work on sustainablility with the U.N. and Canadian governments, and hints about the study he’d put into the subject. Schmidt’s comment is unfounded, as it seems evident that Peterson may demonstrably know better about the scientific use of mathematical modeling, and is at least as professionally qualified and experienced as many who Schmidt and Mann would claim were Climate Scientists if they were faking another consensus survey.
As others here have said, I too would welcome a debate between Schmidt and or Mann and Peterson. I’d also break practice (I’m not a Rogan fan) and listen to a Rogan podcast with either of them. My pre-post time bet would be that Rogan or Peterson would take either of the other two apart, but I am equally certain that Schmidt and Mann know this, too, and will never engage honestly with anyone.
Peterson works on the basis of classic logic and fallacy. I watched the first 30 minutes and my takeaway was:
(a) he was surprisingly angry and a little agitated, so the climate nonsense is emotionally important to him
(b) he emphasised a series of logical fallacies both with climate modelling and left wing views on Net Zero and its impact on the poor
(c) he has clearly taken on board a lot of the views of Michael Schellenbeger and his book Apocalypse Never. Not surprising since he interviewed him and Schellenberger’s arguments are very rational and well argued.
As a postscript, I got a very strong vibe of Peterson channeling Feynman.
ThinkingScientitst — Agree with a, b, c, and your ps. I’d add that IMO there’s a lot of both Bjorn Lomborg and Johan Norberg in parallel with Peterson’s opinion, and he’s spoken to both of them as well.
The issue is that Mann and co adopt a kind of strawman argument. They argue as if he tried to debunk the direct effect of CO2 rather than the more complex effect including feedbacks that determine policy (and lead to much higher climate sensitivities that fuel scare stories).
Agree with your assessment. IMO this comes in the current greater context of shaming Spotify and canceling Rogan. The demented Neil Young gambit is failing, and the strawman in this case appears to me to be coming from the “journalists” in the articles. To me, Peterson’s remarks needn’t be taken as anttack on Schmidt or Mann, and hitting back at the strawman weakens the Global Warming cultists claims. These two charlatans risk further exposure by addressing Peterson’s casual opinion on the reporters’ terms. If they’re maneuvered into challenging Peterson or appearing on Rogan they will lose.
Years ago Bryson and two German physicists with initials T&G said it was impossible to model the climate because you could account everything on the surface nor know the initial conditions. Peterson is not the first to say that.
If we can now create models that involve ‘everything, why not apply this technology to the economy and the stock market?
Now, am I understanding this correctly?
Michael E.Mann believes that every advance in science etc.was occasioned by “conceptual models”?
This is contradicted by the findings of almost every great scientist I can think of and by Richard Feynman’s lecture “What is Science?”
Feynman explained the Scientific Method in 62 seconds and nowhere did modelling get a mention.
Any concept that could be called a model. An example would be how the force of gravity depends on the distance between objects. The concept was that the force would be spread over a greater surface area the further from the larger object the second object was. The area was a function of distance so gravity should be inversely proportional to r^2. That inspired the postulate that was tested and became an empirical law. It didn’t prove the reasoning for it was sound, let alone justify it being the impetus for spending trillions of dollars to decarbonise the economy so that albatross divorce rates will not rocket.
The problem is they did have people on who know what a climate model is – pure unadulterated propaganda. And yes the climate system is far too complex to accurately model as has been proven time and time again but the modellers who claim otherwise. Having Mickey Mannish criticize one’s veiwpoint is like being knocked around by dandelion fluff. And as for Neil Young – he made some great music, then he rapidly became irrelevant and annoying. The climate gang just hate it when the truth gets coverage because it shows them how purposeless their lives are and how close they may be to a final accounting of their meager worth.
All models are wrong; some are useful. The usefulness is based on the fidelity of the outputs in regard to how well they predict actual outcomes. And even in the case where models produce results that closely match the real world, they are tightly constrained to narrow specific cases and/or time-frames, outside of which they have no meaning. The real trick is knowing under what specific circumstances a model is valid so that you aren’t fooled by invalid results. And generally speaking, the more complex the model, the more narrow is its domain of validity. This is what people like Mann and Schmidt either don’t understand, or are intentionally misleading people about.
I seem to recall, when I was in elementary school, I bought a model car at a local hobby shop. It was all plastic, the wheels didn’t move, and it didn’t have an engine or electrical system. But it was fun to play with and it resembled the cars people drove around in. That’s my impression of climate models compared to actual climate.
Young sold the rights to his music years ago. Spotify went with Rogan. Talk about a massive backfire!
In the head posting:
“Peterson told Rogan that because the climate was so complex, it couldn’t be accurately modelled.
He said: “Another problem that bedevils climate modelling, too, which is that as you stretch out the models across time, the errors increase radically. And so maybe you can predict out a week or three weeks or a month or a year, but the farther out you predict, the more your model is in error.
“And that’s a huge problem when you’re trying to model over 100 years because the errors compound just like interest.””
I know that Jordan Peterson has made this kind of comment more than once. It sounds like he might well be referencing Pat Frank’s work on propagation of errors?
Just a thought.
Dr. Frank understands this very well. Land surveyors understand this very well. Errors and uncertainty compound in iterative processes. Survey a length of a mile using 100 yard segments due to landscape. How far can you be off at the end, especially using older equipment! Ask a machinist how easy it is to have wrong parts when multiple iterative processes are needed to manufacture the part.
Well, adjusting the temperature record so that the 1920 and 30th are cold just to better fit the models is NOT what I would call science. Much better would be to admit that the models are a rough tool to study climate and worthless to predict future climate.
According to Blue Marble 3000, in 6,000 BCE, the average global temperature was 14.2 °C (57.6 °F). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3Jwnp-Z3yE
However, there do not seem be any authoritative institutions that will declare what they consider is the ideal average global temperature. Nor can I find the current number for the average global temperature. All I can find are average annual anomalies such as this graph from NASA/GISS. https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/
Does anyone know what the ideal average global temperature is supposed to be?
My fear of climate change took about 5 years to evaporate, by just looking at the science and how bad it is.
It’s like having exited Plato’s cave. It becomes overwhelming obvious who knows the state of the science and who is just parroting some BS they were taught.
Ocean heat and how it is distributed drives the “climate” (mean temperature change) and until we understand and can predict how that works there isn’t a prayer that we will be able to predict climate.
Always a pleasure to hear from Michael Mann, who intentionally subverts science to advance his personal interests.
One of the most important parts of the Scientific Process is that a scientist must publish his supporting data, algorithms, assumptions, everything upon which his theory is built. In this way others can check the data, assumptions, algorithms etc and replicate the experiment. Michael Mann refuses to share his data.
Phil Jones infamously said in Climategate, “We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.”
Science is a search for truth. The entire point of Science is to try to find something wrong to determine whether or not a scientific claim advances the search for truth or not.
Jordan Peterson may not be an expert in climate, but he is an expert in research, statistics, and modeling in the field of psychology. The same fundamental techniques apply to testing theories in psychology and climate change. He is correct about the propagation of errors over time, a fact that climate modelers hand wave away.
“…could be used to dismiss physics, chemistry, biology, “and every other field of science where one formulates conceptual models”…
Another unsupportable opinion by Michael Mann. In all the other disciplines he mentions, actions and “policy” are based on conclusions from observed data, and not “conceptual” model projections. (You can “model” aeronautics, but they still use a wind tunnel before attempting flight.)
A scientist’s idea of what will happen if we fire a projectile into the sky is a lot more accurate than a projection from a “conceptual” climate model because the results from those calculations were repeatedly confirmed.
ah, both highly-credentialed and experienced climate scientists (and, evidently, epidemiologists).
[BTW, Rogen is a college drop-out, Peterson has a PhD in Psychology. Both experts in Markov Chain Monte Carlo modeling, etc., I’m sure :-)]
Bill Gates is a college drop-out as well.
Oops – bad example 🙁
And Einstein was just patent clerk. You don’t need credentials to be able to think and learn new things. Dr. Peterson has probably forgotten more about statistics than most “climate scientists” ever knew (since so many studies in psychology depend on the proper application of statistics). It’s critical to remember that climate modeling crosses so many domains of expertise, and if you cock up any of them, you have a meaningless mess on your hands. And I can tell you from a software development POV (and I have 35 years of experience), they have royally cocked it up.
Gavin Schmidt: “Guys, for the love of everything holy, please, please, have somebody on who knows what the heck a climate model is”
Yes please to this request. I’d like to know what would they say to explain the value of models’ many wrong and useless outputs?
Or perhaps, on the other hand, they could tell us what, if anything, the models get right to a standard which actually benefits us?
That is an interview I’d love to hear. Who would Gavin suggest as the absolute ace candidate to enlighten us? And, if he doesn’t think Joe Rogan is up to the task, who would Gavin suggest should provide the forensic questions?
This blog sure feels like a think tank of people telling each other what they like to hear. In the most insipid and agro ways possible. Lot of back slapping going on to make each other feel good about their opinions! Hope I learn something from you all eventually? Is this what diversity of opinion looks and feels like? because it doesn’t seem like all the opinions I see on here diverge very much from one another. actually pretty repetitive.